


Roadtrip To The Stars

by RunWithWolves



Series: 30 Days of Cupcake [16]
Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: F/F, Space AU, request week, roadtrip au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-03
Updated: 2016-10-03
Packaged: 2018-08-19 10:31:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8202185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RunWithWolves/pseuds/RunWithWolves
Summary: After graduating from university, best friends Carmilla and Laura are packing up their tiny spaceship and going on a three month roadtrip across the universe before they head their separate ways. Even though being free of her mother to see the universe was supposed to be everything Carmilla ever wanted, she can't help the flip in her chest every time she looks at Laura. 
She never meant to fall in love with her best friend but it turned out to be the easiest thing in the world. It's telling Laura the truth that's infinitely more difficult.





	

**Author's Note:**

> It's request week! That means I pull from the 70+ prompts you sent and spend 5 days turning them into stories. Today's prompt(s): 
> 
> -Hollistein in space!! maybe a space crew AU? Guadians of the galaxy?? idk !! but SPACE IS COOL
> 
> \- the song "All I've ever wanted" by John Tyree. But that song makes me think of a beautiful summer road trip...need to say goodbye but they have three months to soak it all in. (both think it's unrequited and are giving themselves the summer to have and do as much as possible before they can't have it anymore) I leave it up to you whether they end up together
> 
> \- I noticed that there is an unfortunate dearth of space aus among your fics, so if you still are I humbly request a firefly/farscape/star trek/space pirates(!!!) hollstein au, anything where they're traveling through space together rather than being grounded on an extraterrestrial planet. 
> 
> \- And idk how about a roadtrip AU? Or a space AU!! (space is rad) I'd love to read one of those :)
> 
> \- roadtrip please!
> 
> Alright, cupcakes. i can take a hint. I'm just combining these two prompts together because it's fun! <3 Also, I love that you all somehow seem to think that I'm the sci-fi/space writer. I approve.

When Laura’s dad insisted on checking the safety parameters of the spaceship for the fourth time, Carmilla had to grit her teeth to keep herself from beaning him over the head with a fire extinguisher. Still, she followed him through the ship again as though she hadn’t tripled checked everything herself before letting Laura anywhere near it. They’d bought the bucket of bolts cheap and split the cost 50/50 so Carmilla’s mother couldn’t touch. She wasn’t about to let Laura fly in a ship that was actually dangerous.

If nothing else, Laura’s best friend and her father had bonded on their mutual desire to keep her safe. 

She was willing to take the hit to her pride as the ‘best engineer from Silas’s graduating class’ if it meant Papa Hollis would let Laura go with her. Carmilla only had three months left with her, her heart squeezed at the thought of losing them.

With only a handshake for her as he finished his last round of the tiny spaceship, Carmilla was left wondering as to his decision. She didn’t have to wonder for long. As she was checking the engine for the fourth time, Carmilla’s arms were suddenly full of a laughing Laura Hollis.

“He said yes!” Laura shouted, “The Ultimate Post-Graduation Roadtrip is a go, Carm! We can go!”

She swung Laura away from the dirty engine but there was still somehow a smudge of grease on the apple of Laura’s cheek, framing big brown eyes and her grin. A smile cracked over Carmilla’s face in response, Laura’s arms warm around her waist. The kind of moment she wished she could catch in a photo.

“We can go?” Carmilla repeated.

“We can go!” Laura shouted, “Let’s just jump in and go right now.” Her hands squeezed excitedly at Carmilla’s sides and Carmilla’s heart skipped a beat, “It’s everything we wanted, Carm! You and me.The best of the universe. Free of your mother. Do anything. We can see the Yzedpleidas star cluster or check out the Dexon meteors or that weird abandoned space station or the volcanoes of Pioldi or just.. Anything!”

Carmilla felt her smile dim slightly as she said, “That might take more than three months, cupcake. Don’t forget about that job waiting for you in Zunturi.” She forced the smile back on booped Laura on the nose, “Everything you wanted. Remember?”

“Oh. Right. My job. Of course,” Carmilla’s side felt cold when Laura stepped back, “Well. I meant you. Now that you’re free of your mother. Right? That’s why we’ve got the ship. You can do all of those things and um, send me postcards. Of all the ones we didn’t get to do together.”

Words sat unspoken on Carmilla’s tongue. Words that she’d meant to say for years but had always found excuses not to. Come with me. Stay with me. Don’t go. Don’t let me leave. You’re beautiful. You’re everything. 

Something else lingering behind them that Carmilla refused to acknowledge. She’d known Laura since they were kids, hardly a day in her memory that didn’t have Laura in it. 

Instead she said, “Of course you want postcards. You big nerd.”

“Says the girl who keeps a secret diary of everything she wants to do and see now that you’re on your own.” Laura said. The smirk on her face looked like one she’s stolen from Carmilla. 

So Carmilla scowled at her.

“Oh don’t give me that,” Laura laughed, “You’re the sap with the big book that says ‘Everything I Want’ on the cover.”

“We were children.” Carmilla grumbled.

Laura grabbed her hand and started yanking her towards the ship, “So if I check your bunk, I won’t find the book stashed under your pillow?”

Even as her eyes widened, Carmilla didn’t stop Laura from pulling her into the ship. Hands linked together. 

#

Carmilla could fly a spaceship perfectly fine but watching Laura do it was something else entirely. Laura settled into the pilot’s chair as Carmilla slipped into the co-pilot seat beside her to watch as Laura flipped switches and toggled a few knobs. The ship was small enough that their armrests were almost touching, just enough room between them for someone to walk through if they turned sideways. 

She looked over at Carmilla and grinned, “Ready for everything you wanted?”

Carmilla took a deep breath, “Never looking back, cupcake.”

Laura’s tongue poked from between her teeth as she gently coaxed them off the ground. Her hands were steady on the steering column, occasionally reaching out poke or prod some other button. The sky above them started blue but as they rose higher, the colour slowly leached from the sky. As they approached the last layer of clouds, before the atmosphere became too thin, Laura looked over at Carmilla. 

Carmilla sat up instantly and smirked. Her hand shot forward to shove the steering column forward.

They burst through the clouds as Laura gave an excited shriek as they barrelled through the sky, her hands in the air like she was on a roller coaster and trusting Carmilla to hold the column. The sound had Carmilla doing a quick barrell roll, just to hear it again. 

When the straightened out, Laura took the console again with a challenge in her eyes, “That was hardly a barrell role, Carm.”

It was all the warning Carmilla got before the ship twisted, slightly faster than she’d like as an engineer. “Hands up!” Laura shouted, “Come on! That’s the rule!”

So Carmilla put her hands in the air as Laura laughed beside her, leaving the atmosphere behind them. As the massive thrust required to break gravity died and the stars appeared before them, something in her chest slipped into place. 

Laura still giggling beside her. 

#

She didn’t think that she’d ever get tired of looking at the stars. That statement was not true for Laura. In the past two days, Laura had already managed to burn through an entire season of some tv show and force Carmilla into playing a handful of spaceship games. 

Laura had turned into a huffy pile of scrunched noses when Carmilla’s version of I Spy was just ‘Guess Exactly Which Star She Was Looking At’. In Carmilla defence, there wasn’t much besides stars to look at. 

Plus, huffy Laura was adorable.

#

Their first stop of one of Laura’s. She had been bouncing in her seat for the past few hours hands touching and then leaving the steering column. Carmilla was in the tiny kitchen when Laura shouted.

“Carm! We’re here! Come look!”

Shaking her head, Carmilla smiled and dropped two marshmallows into one of the mugs in front of her. Then she grabbed both and made her way up to the main cabin. When she popped through the small hatch, Laura was leaning against the window and trying to get a better look at the planet below them. 

Colloquially called the ‘Shining Planet’, it was made entirely of gemstones of every colour. Blues and red and greens of semi-precious rock mixed in a planet-sized mass of glittering rock. When Laura turned to look at Carmilla, she was still bouncing.

“You’re gonna miss it!” Laura said. 

Carmilla rolled her eyes and sat in her chair, placing Laura’s mug in the cupholder and sipping on her own. “I’ve seen it before, cupcake.”

“Not with me!” Laura objected. 

Shaking her head, Carmilla tapped at the steering console to slightly shift the position of the ship. 

A better view. 

“Sit down, cupcake.” Carmilla said, “It’s still going to take a minute to line up.”

Laura dropped into her seat, grabbing her hot chocolate. Her eyes never left the planet but she did reach out and tap Carmilla on the arm, “I thought we didn’t have room in cupboards for marshmallows.”

Carmilla shrugged, “Forced them in.”

Took out a package of her pop tarts. 

The next few moments passed in silence, just small sips of hot liquid as the ship drifted closer and closer to the perfect angle. Then it hit. The star that the Shining Planet orbited slipped perfectly behind the semi-transparent planet and suddenly the whole thing light up in a sea of colour. Reds and blues and greens lighting up in the universe’s biggest stained glass picture. Every jagged angle of the uncut rock creating a new prism of light that flung it’s colour out into the universe. THe edges sparkling with white flashes while the colours streamed through. Twinkling yet solid. Laura gasped beside her, Carmilla’s peripheral catching Laura’s hand going to her mouth. 

The ship drifted a little further and the beams of light hit the cabin, drenching them in the colours before them. 

Carmilla had seen it all before but even she could say that it was beautiful. 

Something warm landed on her arm, Laura touch intimately familiar as her fingers lightly grasped at Carmilla’s wrist. Ruby red light on them both. 

She looked over. 

Colours coated Laura. Emerald green light rippled across most of her torso, dancing as the ship and planet both continued to move through the sky. The green bled into strips of emerald blue that washed in strips across her neck before giving way to a brilliant yellow light that shone across her face. Nearly golden in colour. Laura’s mouth still hung open but the corner were curved into a smile as though her face didn’t know what reaction to give. Far too caught up the sight before her. 

There was a mustache of hot chocolate on her lips. 

She turned her head slightly to look at Carmilla, casting her face in shadow behind her hair. 

Reaching out, Carmilla tucked Laura’s hair back behind her ear and the golden light danced across her face again. As Carmilla’s fingers gently caressed the shell of Laura’s ear, the light highlighted every curve of her face and created a golden circle of colour around the black of her pupils, bleeding into the brown of her eyes. 

Laura’s fingers came out, tracing Carmilla’s jawline and chasing the red light that Carmilla knew was covering her face. Her fingers soft and tentatively. Then they pushed Carmilla’s gaze back towards the planet. 

“Don’t look at me Carm,” Laura’s voice was a smile. 

Still, Carmilla pushed back against the fingers to keep looking at Laura. She winked but her words still came out more sincere than she intended, “But you’re the most beautiful part.”

Laura paused, her thumb rubbing a small circle under Carmilla’s chin, before she tore her eyes from Carmilla’s and snorted. Brown eyes with golden light gone from view. “Always with the lines,” Laura said. 

She glanced back at Carmilla and the look on Laura’s face had Carmilla frowning. She could see determination set across Laura’s face. 

Just a hint of fear. 

Before Carmilla could try and figure out where the emotions were coming from, Laura got up, taking the two steps and falling into Carmilla’s lap. Frozen, Carmilla’s arms hovered in the air with no idea where to land. Laura made the decision for her, pulling them around Laura’s waist as she snuggled backwards into Carmilla. 

“Now you have to look at the planet,” Laura said. Her voice triumphant but oddly high. 

Carmilla had seen the planet before but never like this. Never with Laura’s warmth pressed into her front and Carmilla’s chin propped in the hollow of Laura’s shoulder. Never with the tickle of Laura’s hair on the side of her face and the smell of chocolate in her nose. Never with the soft movement of Laura’s breath under her palms and the flutter of her heart in Carmilla’s ear. 

She hadn’t realized she’d been missing anything the first time. 

But this. 

Red coated both their faces, the ruby light mixed with bits of white sparkle that felt like laughter as Carmilla watched it spin across the side of Laura’s face that she could still see. Whirling like mischievous comets across Laura’s cheeks as the planet spun to explode into starlight in the tips of her eyelashes. 

The red was the colour of her lips, upturned in the smallest smile that somehow said more than the largest grin. The green the colour of flecks in her eyes, flicking from Carmilla to the planet and back again. The blue was found in the way Laura’s fingers covered her own, sandwiching her hands tighter to Laura’s stomach as a sigh of contentment filled her with air. The yellow glowed soft and warm like the heat of the body that had sunk into Carmilla’s body like it belonged there. 

They weren’t just colours. 

Perhaps they never had been. 

She just hadn’t noticed. Somehow it had all changed. 

Carmilla snuggled deeper into Laura, giving herself the moment of weakness. They kept circling, even when the spaceship drifted too far and the colours died, Laura and Carmilla stayed. They could see everything from their vantage point and Laura started telling her stories of the planet, first with a shaky voice but slowly growing more confident as Carmilla added sarcastic commentary in her ear. With the planet holding them, gravity swung them back around until the colours crept back in again. 

The planet came to life again, leaving Carmilla wondering how she hadn’t realized everything she was missing when she’d flown here years ago. This was so much more. 

Laura fell asleep halfway through that second rotation, slumping in Carmilla’s arms and mumbling softly as she turned to nuzzle her nose into Carmilla’s neck. Carmilla looped her arms around Laura and held her.

Purely so she wouldn’t fall on the floor. 

But when they passed the light again and the greens and blues and yellows danced over Laura’s face, Carmilla couldn’t take her eyes off her. She had no interest in sleeping. Not for a minute. Not if this was her last 3 months with the girl in her arms. 

They had a plan to see everything and Carmilla wasn’t going to miss any of it. 

Not when it would be gone too soon. Laura had a life planned out. 

So did Carmilla. 

The colours faded for the third time and Carmilla tried to ignore the pounding of her chest as she wiped the hot chocolate mustache from Laura’s lips. Her eyes darted to the clock on the console. She had time for a fourth circle. 

Arms never letting go. Already dreading the moment they had to land again.

She’d never meant to fall in love with her best friend. 

The last shimmers of light were leaving when Laura cracked her eyes open and pressed a soft kiss to the blue and yellow beams on the side of her neck, “You’re painted with galaxies, Carm”. Laura fell asleep again. Leaving Carmilla’s heart pounding in her chest and something that felt traitorously like hope starting to bubble in the cracks where she was missing pieces. Maybe. Somehow. She wouldn't need to let go. 

There was time for a fifth loop.

**Author's Note:**

> space and roadtrips and pining? i loved mixing them together. <3
> 
> Cupcakes, thank you so much for your kudos and comments and [tumblr stop-ins](http://ariabauer.tumblr.com/). As I write, it's always motivating to see them pop up. keeps me going as we've hit the middle where things get tougher because brain-fatigue. you're all amazing.
> 
> This is the sixteenth story of '30 Days of Cupcake' where I'll be posting a unique Carmilla fanfic every weekday for 30 days. Stay stupendous. Aria.


End file.
